Switching card transactions in Europe: An interview with Ernst Verbeek

According to the European Central Bank, more than 780 million payment cards were in circulation in Europe by the end of 2015; in turn, these cards had been used to process more than 52 billion transactions. Card switching is the domain that sits between the issuer and the acquirer when a transaction is processed, and that domain is often overlooked. The switching domain is under constant change: acquirers and, to a lesser extent, issuers are starting to support all card brands as long as there is a customer demand for them. Further, regulation is impacting switching. To talk about a European payments market is a misnomer as a single market does not exist in the way that it does for other industries. Market actors still have a very country-centric orientation, although it cannot be denied that this is changing, even if the talk of change far outweighs the change actually happening. It is safe to say, however, that the market, helped along by new regulation, is in a state of constant change. In this interview, Ernst Verbeek, CEO of Trionis, discusses the specifics of the payment card switching industry and the constant change impacting this domain.